The USC Gould School of Law offers a premiere inter-professional education to highly motivated students preparing for a career that will span the coming decades. As the legal profession continues to evolve, no school is better positioned to provide the education that will be the platform for the next generation of lawyers who will practice on a world-wide stage. The legal profession is dynamic, and USC Gould School of Law has always taken pride in adapting its methods to provide a legal education tailored to needs of the current environment, while maintaining its strong core commitments.

From your first day on campus, you'll notice that USC Gould School of Law is different. It's small enough to actually be a community in the real sense of the word even though USC is one the country's largest research universities, and located in the second largest city in the U.S. People know your name here, faculty and administration are accessible, and your success is everyone's priority.

USC Gould School of Law is a private, highly selective national law school with a 100-year history and a reputation for academic excellence. Under the leadership of a stellar, energetic faculty, the school's rigorous, interdisciplinary program focuses on the law as an expression of social values and an instrument for implementing social goals. USC is known for its diverse student body, its leadership in clinical education, and its tight-knit alumni network composed of national leaders in the legal profession, business, and the public sector. With approximately 185-190 J.D. students and 125-150 graduate international students in each class, the school is small, informal, and collegial.

John B. Milliken Professor of TaxationUSC Gould School of Law

Thomas D. Griffith specializes in studies of income tax and in criminal law. He teaches Contracts, Corporate Taxation, Criminal Law, Topics in Criminology and Federal Income Taxation.

Professor Griffith is the author of Federal Income Tax: Examples and Explanations (with Joseph Bankman and Katherine Pratt, Aspen Law & Business, 2002); “Gangs, Schools and Stereotypes” (with Linda S. Beres, Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 2004); and “Progressive Taxation and Happiness” (“The State of Federal Income Tax Symposium: Rates, Progressivitiy, and Budget Processes,”Boston College Law Review, 2004).

A magna cum laude graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, Professor Griffith was an editor on the Harvard Law Review and was an associate at Hill & Barlow in Boston, Mass., before joining the USC Law faculty in 1984. He also taught at New York University. He is a past subcommittee chair of the American Bar Association Committee of Problems of Low Income Taxpayers and lecturer at the USC Tax Institute. In 2009, Griffith received the William A. Rutter Distinguished Teaching Award.